SCOTT KARA takes a walk on the quiet side with Low's Alan Sparhawk
KEY POINTS:
I'm telling Alan Sparhawk from Low how I've been shushed at a rock'n'roll gig before. He's laughing because the guitarist and singer in the minimal Minnesota band knows the combative "sh" sound well.
I describe how I was creeping through the crowd on the way to the toilet
at a show by Japanese avant-guitar-weirdo Keiji Haino when, from out of the darkness, came a mighty "sshh". I was like, "whatever".
But I want to know if I'm likely to get shushed when Low play their first gig in New Zealand, at the Kings Arms next week?
"Unfortunately, maybe," chuckles Sparhawk. "I don't care, but yeah, there are definitely some militant Low fans who will get annoyed if they feel people are being too loud."
You see, Low play the kind of rock'n'roll that is minimal, brittle and hushed, yet powerful. The band's eighth album, Drums and Guns, produced by Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev mastermind Dave Fridmann, made TimeOut's top 30 albums of 2007.
"Honestly," says Sparhawk, "it's nice when it's quiet, and there are certain things we do live that you're just not going to pick up unless it's a quiet room. But you can't predict that - every room is different, and you can't start crying and telling people to shut up. They've paid their money but I'm sure some militant fan will stick a fork in their leg somewhere later in the club."
He's on the phone from his basement studio in Duluth, Minnesota, where he's "fiddling with guitars and amps trying to figure out which ones work and which ones don't".
He formed Low in 1993 with his wife Mimi Parker on drums and vocals. The most recent addition to the band is bass player Matt Livingston, replacing long-time member Zak Sally who left after the band's previous album, The Great Destroyer, in 2005.
Sparhawk and Parker are Mormons, although you wouldn't know it from Low's music. He describes his faith as just "being there" in the songs.
If anything, he says his faith has given him the knowledge to deal with "heavy subjects" like spirituality and life and death within their music.
"I've been really happy about the little ways it has worked into the music, but at the end of the day what a person believes about who they are, where they came from and where they are going is really what informs their creativity. Everybody has something they're striving for in that way, and for me it's a religion. It's something I believe in and I'm glad it's there and it has certainly given meaning to the music we've done."
Sparhawk, who is part of the Mormon rock'n'roll club with Killers front man Brandon Flowers, admits being in a rock band was a teenage dream.
"It's fun. I'm fascinated with sound, guitars, amplifiers, [tour] vans, and the history of music. I think rock'n'roll has made some really beautiful things happen in the world and I really enjoy touching it and being there when it's happening."
In Low's early days, when grunge dominated, they were dubbed slow core, a term Sparhawk hates so much he won't even say it - "it was labelled a certain thing and we could have very well been painted into a corner."
But the band refused to be typecast.
"This music to me is about starting in one place and seeing where it was going to take us," says Sparhawk. "We started out being very specific about what the band was - very minimalist but dynamic, but on the quiet side of dynamic."
In the past couple of years, many personal experiences have shaped Low's music, and Sparhawk's "mental breakdown" made Drums and Guns the band's most challenging album to make. It's also one of the band's heaviest. With its beautifully bloody songs and anti-war sentiment, it's a highly political album, but because of Low's smouldering approach it doesn't come across as preachy.
"For Drums and Guns I was getting the sense that it was addressing a lot of ideas like murder and justification for oppression, but we've never been intentional writers. We don't say, 'this is what I'm really concerned about at the moment, so let's write some stuff about it'. The songs just come and I've learned that inevitably you're going to write about what is pertinent to what's going on in these times."
LOWDOWN
Who: Low
What: Minimal Minnesota rock
Line-up: Alan Sparhawk (guitars/vocals); Mimi Parker (vocals/drums); Matt Livingston (bass/vocals)
Where & when: Kings Arms, Auckland, January 9Latest album: Drums and Guns (2007)
See also: The Great Destroyer (2005); Trust (2002); Secret Name (1999); The Curtain Hits the Cast (1996); Long Division (1995); I Could Live in Hope (1994)
